Where is the summer?

We are still waiting for the summer of 2012. Since we came home life has been hectic preparing for our daughter's wedding, amongst other things but now find myself with a bit of time to catch up on our voyage from a couple of months ago. Although I asked "where is the summer?" looking back at the photos below, it all looked very summery! How soon we forget.

Last post on here we were tied up at Napton Junction and about to start our journey south down the Oxford Canal.

Morning at Napton

We awoke to a fine day, filled everything up. Diesel, water, coal. Batteries were fully charged as we had been plugged in overnight. Sue even used the on-board washer/dryer so we had all clean clothes too. So off we went. We had done this stretch before during our first voyage after launching Tempranillo in late 2011 so we sort of knew what to expect but due to the water shortage, hard to believe there was one now, we could only enter the Napton Flight of locks between certain hours. Sue got very courageous. To save her walking the length of each lock to open and close the small double gates, she decided to 'fly' across them.

Shall I......Shan't I?

Steady does it!

Yesssss! Told you I could.

As you can see the weather was great that day and for the next few days too. We had lunch moored near Claydon the next day.

A lovely, quiet remote spot before reaching more locks where the water restrictions were controlled very strictly by a BW Official. The queue we passed  next morning going the other way was horrendous.

Part of the overnight queue for Claydon Locks.

We spent a night at Cropredy and were passed a few times by canoeists. They really 'rock the boat' when they pass. We Narrow boaters have the courtesy to slow when we pass other boats! 

Look how choppy the water is. Anyway it is good to see the canals being used so much.

Our next stop was Banbury. 

It's really good to be able to moor up right in the heart of a town. You step off the boat right by the shopping centre. We thought we should see Banbury Cross as we were so close to it but when we got there we found this:

Not what we wanted to see at all. Apparently it was being done up for the Queen's Jubilee celebrations the following month.

After leaving Banbury we passed under the M40. Here is the big and the small of bridges.

We also encountered some rather deep locks:

Somerton Lock. A big step down.

More of our journey down the Oxford Canal will be on here again soon.